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Church and civil society - cooperation or confrontation?

Submitted by stogniy on Fri, 2012-12-21 20:44

2012-10-25 20:45

Representatives of the clergy and laity of the Christian Churches on September 26 within the 5th Ecumenical Social Week at the round table talked over the controversial issues of the role of Churches in the development of civil society.

The roundtable brought together representatives of different Churches of Ukraine and laity from abroad and Ukraine. The speakers of the roundtable were: Bishop Boris (Gudziak), rector of UCU; Fr. Ivan Dacko, president of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies UCU; archdeacon Ioan Didenko, Head of Philanthropic Department of Kyiv Eparchy UOC, Director of the Foundation "Faith. Hope. Love"; Bishop Filaret (Kucherov) UOC-MP and Prior of St. Nicholas church UOC at the University of the State Tax Service of Ukraine in Irpin Fr. Andrii Klyushev.

To explain better the current relationship among the Church, authorities and society Bishop Boris (Gudziak) applied to the historical experience of UGCC: "Fire that was burning and burned out most of the Greek-Catholic phenomenon in the postwar period but still some element of this Church tempered ... This hardening provided a forced confrontation. There was no other choice. When you remained Greek Catholic, you were marginalized. And about some cooperation, some integration with government could be no question".

Instead, Bishop Filaret (Kucherov) explained that "We must build a relationship between Church and state in which the Church would be free. If the Church today will not influence society, then we will not see the good fruits in work of our country".

Also during a roundtable discussion Fr. Ivan Dacko addressed the question of the unity of Churches and said that our problem is that "We are used to this status quo, used to be separated".

All roundtable participants paid special attention to the role of the young generation in the development of society and the Church.